Youth Issues Absent

Is it because we're too impatient to wait in long lines? Probably not. We're willing to camp out for hours to get tickets for Nelly's next show. Is it because we're not interested in "grown-up" issues like politics? I don't think so. Across the country folks my age log record hours in community service and turn out in huge numbers for demonstrations like those in Seattle.

So why don't we vote? Because politicians are not talking about issues that will affect our future. As a Florida resident who has no children in school and thankfully no need for prescription drugs, I don't feel that politicians are talking at all about my concerns.

If politicians want to show concern about my future, they should talk about other issues. Like the environment. From where I'm standing, no single issue will have a larger impact on my future than environmental destruction.

Well, maybe nuclear war, but I think we all agree that should be avoided.

My generation enjoyed an education that taught us the costliness of environmental destruction. We know that parts of Florida we love, like the Keys and the Everglades, are poisoned by all kinds of pollution.

And it's not just Florida's environment that's endangered; my future job is in limbo. If we continue burning fossil fuels like we do now, my generation will watch Florida turn from a tourist haven to a tropical lowland subject to flooding, intense hurricanes and diseases usually found near the Equator. Beautiful reefs that used to draw people from all over the world will be shadows of their present selves. A damaged, tourist-hungry economy is not a place where I'll be able to find a job.

Let's make the Sunshine State a leader in solar energy. We can create new, high-paying jobs. and with solar, we'd forget oil-price crises and rolling brownouts.

Yes, some of these advances are expensive right now. But computers and cell phones went from being devices Q would give James Bond to products we all own. Don't tell me we can't make solar energy affordable.